Traveller’s Tales

How’s this for a little role reversal? Where Sonic Mania features fan game developers work in a commercial Sonic game, a Sonic game developer makes works on a ROM hack?

GameHut is the YouTube channel run by Traveller’s Tales founder Jon Burton which recently celebrated his achievement of 25,000 subscribers. The channel provides a constant stream of video material showcasing old prototypes, special builds and insight on coding techniques of Traveller’s Tales’ work over the years. There’s a greater focus on Mega Drive material and more recently a focus on their work on Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast / Sonic 3D Flickies’ Island. As an example I reported on videos on SEGAbits that covered a prototype for Sonic R and unseen footage of an unannounced sequel to Mickey Mania.

In a surprise announcement for achieving 25,000 subscribers on the channel Jon announced that he is working on releasing an unofficial patch for Sonic 3D titled Sonic 3D Director’s Cut that focuses on restoring content and adding enhancements to the game. This has no involvement with SEGA or any other company and is only being developed by Jon himself in his spare time. Details about the hack can be seen in the jump.

There have rumors about his inclusion for some time now, but it’s finally confirmed: Sonic is joining Lego Dimensions. Warner Bros Games announced that a whole bunch of franchises are joining the game, which will feature Gremlins, Mission Impossible, Batman, Sonic and other franchises crossing over with eachother. If they were trying to knock Super Smash Bros off the “most ridiculous cross-over video game” throne, they’ve succeeded.

Not much is known about Sonic’s inclusion right now, but at the very least we should be getting a Lego figurine of Sonic the Hedgehog that can be used with the game. Also there’s been a world in Lego Dimensions for every franchise that’s been a part of it so far, so we’ll probably be seeing a Lego-fied version of Sonic’s world as well.

This isn’t the first time Traveller’s Tales has worked with the Sonic franchise, they also worked with Sonic Team back in the Saturn days to make Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island and Sonic R. We don’t know if Richard Jacques will be composing the music again though.